7 Species That Got Screwed Over by Mother Nature

Evolution is the art of producing the deadliest, meanest, most efficient beasts possible. But it's not a perfect process: For every great white shark, grizzly or honey badger, there's a slew of animals rolling fatly around the reject pile, just waiting to be killed and eaten (and if you don't hurry, some of them will even do it themselves). So let's go Dumpster diving in evolution's trash bin, shall we?

#7. Black Vultures Loooooove Them Some Anus

It's pretty hard to disgust a vulture. Hey, if you survived on a diet of rotten corpses and used your own shit as an air-conditioning system, you'd get an iron stomach pretty quick, too. But even in the Garbage Pail Kid hierarchy of vulture grossness, somebody's got to be at the bottom of the barrel. And you don't get closer to the bottom than the anus. Just ask the black vulture.

Black vultures have weaker beaks than raptorial birds, and as a consequence they can't crack through the tough hides and solid bones of a carcass. So they have to attack the softest body parts of their victims first -- the anus and eyeballs. No, that's not the gross part. You can't handle the gross part. Just ... there's some good stuff later about exploding penises -- maybe that's more your speed. Go check that out.

You really want to know? All righty. You insisted. Once the butthole buffet is depleted, the black vulture then burrows in through the devoured rectum to get at the rest of the tender innards. Think about that: Every time they get hungry, they have to dig an asshole tunnel using their mouths instead of shovels. If you really want to understand the plight of the black vulture, here's a fun little experiment: The next time you microwave a bean-and-cheese burrito, try poking a hole in one end and then shoving your whole head in there to eat it from the inside out, because the textures are probably pretty similar and -- oh goddamn it. We just ruined burritos for everybody, didn't we?

They were delicious, we know. We're so sorry.

We usually start at the stomach, but now their cold, dead ass just sits there, judging us.

#6. The Spotted Hyena and the Phantom Penis

Spotted hyenas are different from other species in that their females run the society. For all of you misogynists out there thinking that "it takes a dong to run a nation," you are, sadly, right in this instance: Hyena chicks have dicks.

To understand how hyena society results in becocked females, you need to know three basic biological facts:

1) The more aggressive a female is, the more likely she is to pass on her genes.
2) The chemical that causes females to be more aggressive is called androgen.
3) This also happens to be the same chemical that causes male hyena embryos to become, well, male.

As a result, the female spotted hyena sports a clitoris that is 7 inches long, with a "pseudo-scrotum" and a birth canal that runs right up the middle. While this factoid may have finally won Cracked that prized hyena transsexual enthusiast demographic, it causes some pretty serious problems for the animals in question. For one thing, nabbing yourself a dick that should not be doesn't necessarily free you from the burden of childbirth: Remember what we said about the birth canal running through the near-penis? That means a 2-pound cub is, at some point, going to tear its way out of some poor hyena's girl-wang. Unsurprisingly, about 10 percent of female spotted hyenas die during childbirth -- from complications or straight-up suicide, we couldn't say.

Getty"Look me in the eyes and tell me why I shouldn't eat you right now."

#5. Inquiring Kakapos Want to Know: What the Hell is a "Predator"?

Over millions of years, most animals have adopted some kind of defensive strategy. An enterprising species might develop camouflage, sharp teeth or spines (if it's smart, it'll just go straight for the pistol-hands). But what if there were no natural enemies whatsoever? An animal could put absolutely all of its energy into eating and reproduction! On the plus side, that's a surefire recipe for a species to thrive. On the down side, those criteria would probably result in a fat, helpless, delicious-tasting nymphomaniac. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the kakapo: the BBW of the animal kingdom.

It's the world's only flightless parrot (a less threatening pair of words has never been uttered) and weighs in at a portly 8 pounds (tubby, for a bird). The kakapo spends most of its time feeding, procreating and metaphorically basting itself in butter. This controversial decision to eschew traditional survival methods in favor of hitting up the buffet one more time made perfect sense for its native environment, New Zealand -- a country that was in the bathroom when God was handing out mammals.

For centuries, hundreds of thousands of kakapos waddled around New Zealand having unhindered sex 'n' food parties, but the good times hit a damper with the arrival of Polynesian settlers around the 14th century and ground to a halt altogether when the Europeans swung by in the 1800s. These newcomers brought with them livestock, dogs, cats, ferrets, rats and, yes, possums. The kakapos not only were unable to fly away from these new predators, but couldn't even run away. A kakapo's natural reaction to danger is to stand completely still -- not play dead, not emit a foul odor or even make a sound. They just stop moving and hope whatever's trying to kill them is too filled with pity to follow through on it. In the vicious game of cops and robbers that nature plays during every minute of every day, the kakapos are playing freeze tag.

Not surprisingly, kakapos were immediately slaughtered in ludicrous numbers. The Maoris were already making coats of their feathers and stuffing their pillows with them, and then the Europeans and their animals started devouring them like the stationary poultry-fruit that they were. Today, only about 100 kakapos remain, making it one of the world's rarest birds (and probably sometime soon, the only species to go extinct from sheer panic).

#4. Sea Squirts: Head of Their Class

The only thing evolution cares about is brutal efficiency. So if something isn't actively helping an animal to survive or pass on its genes, it gets tossed like a bad salad. That's why cave fish lost their eyes, snakes ditched their legs and we evolved out of our bitchin' weaponized penises.

But there are worse things to lose: Just ask a baby sea squirt. One minute it's swimming around in the plankton all "Herbie derbie doo, I'm a squirt" (OK, you tell us what sound a sea squirt makes, smart guy), and the next it's cementing itself headfirst to a rock. Since sitting in one spot and waiting for food to drift into your stomach isn't the most mentally stimulating of occupations, the brain just isn't useful any more -- or rather, it is useful, but only for one thing: Those tasty, nutritious brain cells.

Yep, part of the sea squirt's awkward teenage years involves devouring its own brain from the inside out. Keep that in mind the next time you open your mouth to bitch about acne scars or that time Jennifer made fun of your squeaky voice in front of like, practically everybody; at least she didn't tear out your frontal lobe and make you a sandwich out of it.